Moments
by Lucky's Girl
Summary: Everyone is comprised of moments. Bucky thinks of the moments that led him here. A WinterWidow drabble fluff piece, which connects the two of them in the MCU. Bucky/Nat


Author's Note- This is my first Marvel fan fiction, so keep that in mind. I think Bucky is amazing! I also love the relationship between he and the black widow! The one line in the movies where the Winter Soldier is fighting Natasha, and she says 'the least you can do is remember me,' caught my attention and I looked up their history in the comics. So I guess this little bit of fluff is also a way to bring Natasha and Bucky's relationship into the movie-verse too. Anyways thanks for reading and let me know what you thought with a quick review!

* * *

They compromised of moments, really. Specific things that struck clear through the muck of daily life, switch as a bullet and signaled a hard shift. Perhaps that was how things worked… or maybe it was just because he thought so much. Always overthinking a next move, always calculating his surroundings.

 _'Well… not always,'_ he thought. He used to be different. In hazy, far off memories, that were harder to pull forward, like a grainy picture, then any of the War or Russia. But if he concentrated, he could pull it forward. It was then he was reminded of the carefree, charming James Buchanan Barnes. Always an easy smile, always a witty response, the perfect line always came to mind. Only then, though, in those foggy memories of his earliest life. Everything else was different.

Bucky, after a changed Steve saved them all from that Nazi infested _shitshow_ , and saved him from Zola's torture, was different.

Bucky, during the war with the commando's, fighting the good fight yet still taking more lives than they cared to talk about, was different.

The Winter Soldier too, was different. Those were differences he didn't want to think about.

Whoever he was now, was _very_ different. He felt like the farthest possible version of that young man.

These moments stood out to him as he thought along the question that was plaguing his mind. This **one** _itching_ question, keeping him sleepless, so far from the usual path he followed when his head fell to his pillow.

His dark eyes fell slowly, and cut through the darkness to lap up the vibrant red that seemed to deny the darkness any perch. It's color was easy to see, even in the dark, he felt. The soft lines that peeked from underneath it. They all begged of him the answer to his question.

How was it that he had her, here, with him? Wrapped so soundly in his arms, her breathes light and sweet as she fell into sleep, which evaded him. Because he couldn't help but still stare down at the silky red strands that twisted around her shoulders and splayed across the pillow in spiderwebs. So enticing… he pressed a soft kiss to her hair. He didn't want to wake her.

Bucky moved his eyes back up to the ceiling, and decided maybe if he weren't looking at her he'd have more clarity on the subject. Blank moments followed, no answers were provided in the darkness either. His eyes soon drifted back over her, to take her in. He decided why waste time looking at a dingy old ceiling when she was with him? Those moments he felt were right there, suddenly, so easy to see as his eyes swept over her again.

When he'd gotten out of cryo, thanks to T'Challa and his countries hard work, Steve's doubtless endless hours of study, and even Sam seemed to have clocked in on the effort to bring Bucky out of cryo and into the world without past influences, his mind resolutely his own. No longer a danger, he could fight in his own right.

Steve, of course, had been overjoyed, and although they didn't rush right into anything, the time came when Bucky and Steve had to leave Wakanda. After some time talking, mostly many hours of thinking on his part, Bucky agreed to join the Avengers with Steve. Not because he wanted to, and only slightly because it meant so much to his friend to have Bucky back at his side in whatever battle this would be, but mostly… because it seemed like maybe it was the path. A way to the redemption he'd been looking for since he found something human within himself again.

It wasn't easy, though. Steve had assured him endlessly about all his teammates. That they didn't blame him for what he'd done, that they didn't view him as a villain of sorts. Bucky didn't have the heart to tell Steve they couldn't be blamed if they did think of him that way. He'd been the 'villain' of more stories than he cared to remember. Funnily enough, Steve had been most worried about Stark and if it would bother Bucky.

In truth, he preferred Stark's barely controlled anger, wrangled into a mild form of dictate when he was present. Steve gave him a confused look, when he'd muttered much of the same. But he didn't quite understand it. Bucky was grateful he didn't, Steve was just too stubborn to see anything other than his friend Bucky. A large, but always unspoken, part of him decided that he liked to believe that the good old captain wasn't as much of a moron as he usually was, and that he could simply see the truth that Bucky couldn't accept. It was a small hope, that he guiltily let himself have.

Stark had swept from the room, but Bucky only shrugged unbothered to Steve. It wasn't Tony Stark that bothered him, not more than usual. It was the others, actually, save Steve. They all looked at him the same way. Their formalities and 'understanding' was nothing more than pity.

He had hated their pity. He wasn't looking for their pity, he wanted no part of it, and no part of him felt he deserved it. They all had it, some hid it better than others. But eventually he'd find them at one point or another with a sidelong glance, or when an awkward question might arise.

Each and every one of the Avengers who lived here did…. save one.

Stark's petty comments only drew people's attention to him for so long and then it subsided to the normalcy around here. But when Bucky slipped himself, if it were a choice of words, an uncaring for a certain topic having lived it differently, his different account shocking others, and then Bucky feeling idiotic that he let it slip that he knew anything different than he should know around these guys.

The hardest times were when something might hit him. A word sometimes, a string of conversation that pulled a long since hidden memory whirling forward enough it threw him off outwards as well as inward. With Steve it was one thing, he sat quietly and waited for Bucky to come around, or he'd interrupt with some quick humor and an old, comfortable story.

But with the other Avengers, what he received in these rare but slightly vulnerable states, was their pity. How sorry they felt for him, and it burned Bucky up inside. As his guarded eyes slipped through the group, purposefully trying to ignore the slip a moment ago… something different had attracted his attention.

The Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff, that was. She sat with the others, relaxed, but when his eyes slipped past hers evaluating, he saw none of the pity or concern in her own eyes that was pouring off her fellow teammates. It wasn't Stark's distaste or spite, either. It wasn't Steve's shielded concern and optimistic ideas that it would all slip into the past.

Instead he saw there… an understanding, of sorts? Maybe it was simply her face to the world, the Black Widow had confidence in heaps and bounds. Still she had a knowing sort of look, as if she could read his mind and know exactly how it had all come up. Why he was unsteady in this small room, suddenly, and quick to hide it from all but Steve's careful watch. Hers too, apparently.

It had confused him momentarily, and as the guarded look slipped from his face for just a moment, a small smile lit her face before she was pulled into a ice breaking conversation by Barton. Bucky wasn't sure what it was supposed to mean, but he chose to ignore it and most of them but excusing himself outside for some fresh air.

But that moment had not been the only one. Never did he find pity in Natasha's stare, never did he hear her excuse his past crimes. Never did he find her taking it easy on him for no real reason. Natasha had been through a lot, too, Steve had said. Bucky wouldn't remember until later.

When he did remember, it seemed like another moment that defined now, even as separate people, really. When he'd finally pieced it together, why he felt he knew the Black Widow so much, Bucky had been shocked. Her knowing looks or swift acknowledgments suddenly seemed so clear. Like the river clearing after the rain stopped pelting it, disrupting its image.

He remembered all his moments as the Winter Soldier, they filter in like all the rest, but haunted his subconscious whenever or wherever his eyes shut. There were too many things to keep straight, information, sources, weapons, time period, how long he'd been out of cryo, missions, people, targets… so much that all taunted him and sometimes became confusing and mixed up.

There was one 'mission' he never seemed to be able to mix up. It all stood in perfect clarity, something he was happy about for once. The Soldier's time commanding and training over those who were chosen to enter and train within the Red Room organization. Russia's elite spy program naturally brought their prized possession out of his sleep to make sure they were being trained in all the ways Mother Russia wanted.

A young Natalia Romanova, the top student, motivated to surpass all expectations and clearly capable of it at the time, trained under him. She was all the things they looked for motivated, excellent, controlled, loyal to the cause, willing to sacrifice even her life, absolutely gorgeous… but there was a curiosity that somehow survived the training, the technique's, the very life of the Red Room Program. How could anyone, even a brainwashed assassin, resist someone like that?

The memories of their time together, when they began to tumble together in complete secrecy, both shadows of the person they'd involved into now. For Natalia, that was a good thing, she'd grown more amazing since he'd met her in her youth. For Bucky… well, he couldn't tell anyone the difference some days, and some days he decided he was better than he had been too. Natasha told him he was, and he took her word some days too.

It had been tucked away in his memories, like everything else. But the one thing that seemed to make it stick out in such clarity now was… well, what it brought about in him. Natalia had not only brought The Soldier into a world without commands for a short time, where he fell into a semblance of free will… she'd somehow managed to slip through him, right down to his very core, and elicit a flame in that part of him that could still _feel_.

The Winter Soldier had never known what it was like to feel things like he did with her. To embrace such a human urge, that he worked around his orders to sneak time to be with her. Often, and sometimes recklessly.

Natalia had found this small shard of James Bucky Barnes that had been left intact, even if he didn't know it at the time. It would be burned out, along with any memory of her, as all had been before, and all would be again. But they could never get it all, not completely and their machine couldn't burn away a feeling. That's why these memories stood out with such clarity, he could still feel it all, even now.

Bucky glanced down, his thoughts broken as Natasha twisted in her sleep to face him and drape a leg across his own. His eyes wander over to the red 'digital' clock that flashed the numbers glaringly at the bedside table.

She still did… Natasha. She still somehow managed to pull up all the human parts of him with ease, and when he was with her… it was never a struggle to fight decades worth of instincts and muscle memory.

His eyes grew heavier and heavier and at least sleep started to claim Bucky's mind, now filled with thoughts of the woman in his arms. Her scent, the feel of her, the way she tugged at his very essence even when he had his own back.

"I love you," He muttered softly into her hair as he drifted off into the dark, his arms never loosening around her waist.


End file.
